How To Get Cheap Resumes Using Google
This post is the first in a series called "Internet Resume Delivery" where I’ll show you tips on how we get our resumes inexpensively and in great quantity using the Internet.
Here’s a question I get all the time: "Where are all these resumes coming from?"
As you know, at StaffLeads, our main job is to bring in targeted resumes for our clients. I’m not talking about a handful, but literally STREAMS of resumes.
We learned really quickly that if we were going to be able to compete with industry giants like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com (even on a microscopic level), it was going to take some "outside the box" thinking and practices.
Here’s just one of those methods:
USING GOOGLE TO FIND CHEAP RESUMES
I know a lot of recruiters are not familiar with Google’s advertising application called adwords. there are entire books dedicated to understanding and mastering Google Adwords, but for the purposes of this post, we’ll stick to the very specific info that brings in thousands of resumes for our clients every day:
1. Sign up for Google Adwords: If you or your company does not have an Adwords account, signing up is very simple, just start here: http://adwords.google.com
2. Create a campaign: Google Adwords has options for you to either have your ad show up in their search results, or on websites that receive payment for displaying your ads on their pages. The search option is valuable, and we’ll talk about it in another post, but for this lesson, we’re going to use placement targeted campaigns. Below is an example of how these ads look on pages that utilize the Google Ad program:
The cool thing about the site placement option is that you can actually choose what sites you want your ads to show up on. You even have the option of only displaying to very specific demographics, including geo targeting.
3. Selecting your sites: This step is a little tricky, and will ultimately determine the overall success of your campaign because the type of site determines the type of visitors, which willl (you guessed it) determine the quality of resumes you get.
EXAMPLE:
If you’re a technical recruiter looking for .NET developers, you would want your ad to show up on sites where .NET developers are most likely to take interest in a job ad. A quick Google search for ".net Updates" will show you millions of sites that cater to .Net developers. A few minutes of research will also pull up a number of sites that have the google advertising on them.
If you don’t have time to research, you can simply grab the first 10 or so websites and Google will find similar sites to suggest. Google also allows you to choose where on the sites’ pages you want your ad to show up at.
4. Writing Your Ads: Using this method will typically yield the higher qualified passive jobseekers, so your ad is really going to need to stand out. Again, copywriting in itself is an entire study, but I would say that by offering the benefits of the job opening in your ads is very important. For example, you might want an ad that looks like this:
APPLY ONLINE NOW
Experienced .NET Developer Needed
Top Salary Plus Health Benefits
www.staffleads.com
5. Only Pay When Someone Clicks Your Ad: Google gives you two options to pay for your advertising: CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per thousand people who SEE your ad). Obviously in this case, we’ll only want to pay for jobseekers who are interested enough to click the ad, so you’d want to choose CPC.
Google will ask you to "bid" on your ads, where you can offer as low as $.01 per click or as high as $10+ per click. A strategy we use is to start bidding around $1.50, then gradually lower the bid as we determine the success of the campaign.
Now, all you’ll need is a web page with your job posting and application, and you can start receiving applications immediately. The campaign could use some tweaking to lower the cost-per-resume, but once you have it optimized, you’ll have a steady stream of applications coming in.
I hope this helps some of you break free from the "standard" methods of getting your resumes. I’d like to see any thoughts you might have about this, and as always, ask as many questions as you want.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Wow.. what a way to deceive the unsuspecting.. whether you have a recruiting company or not if a “phishing” website owner launches such a website imagine how much information he/she can extract out of you .. when you are looking desparately for a job you will be providing a lot more information this way.. Resume posters beware … on the web identity theft has becomes so much easier..
thanks for sharing these tips, it does make us aware and always think before we click on the advertised links on GOOGLE…
May 10th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
@careerbright: the major source of jobseeker scams takes place on job boards and resume databases.
I mean, why go to all the trouble of finding quality candidates, when you have low hanging fruit by the hundreds of thousands at the big job sites?
These are the hotbeds of “desparate” jobseekers, as opposed to the more passive applicants this method attracts.
I do find it interesting that what you took away from this post was an insight on avoiding phishing…
May 12th, 2008 at 3:16 am
Do you have any metrics that might show how many applications you receive on average by this method? And of those received, how may of those were deemed ‘quality’ by your team (ie - submitted to your clients?)
May 12th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
@junior: Yes, we maintain in depth tracking on all our campaigns. The number of applications will always vary, depending on how targeted the campaign is. The ratio of quality of applicants to the number of resumes we receive is MUCH higher than any general job site has ever produced.
Here’s an example of a recent campaign:
Our client is seeking customer service reps in FL (Miami, Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale) who speak/write fluent spanish and english.
We were able to target several popular websites who attract a spanish/english speaking audience. Within the last 10 days, our campaign has yielded:
Applications: 375
Forwarded: 283
Downloaded: 276
Total Cost: $41.25
As you can see, we spent around .11 for each resume, and over 75% were sent over to the client.
Let me know if you have any other questions.